


a little piece of grit to build a pearl around

by beanarie



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-07-08 08:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: A collection of ficlets, drabbles, and headcanons. All the titles are by Richard Siken because I could not resist.





	1. he was not dead yet, not exactly

What if during those days Silver was off his head after he lost his leg, he got it twisted as to what happened, like he believes deep within him that he gave the man with the ax whatever he asked for and more. Because sacrificing himself for others? That’s not who he is, that’s not what he does. and he was already feeling weird around the men due to stealing the gold from them. Fevered, drugged up logic stuck his guilt and their incongruous kindness toward him in a blender and came up with the urgent need to _get the hell out_. They’re all confused and wrung dry by the constant escape attempts, and they find they can’t hold him down because that’s when he really loses it.

In the middle of the night, with Silver moving restlessly out of the corner of his eye, about two minutes from something more purposeful that might land him on the floor with popped stitches, Flint picks up a book and starts to read. at first he translates from the Spanish for Silver’s benefit, unsure how far his fluency goes. Eventually he gives up on that and lets the tone of his voice do the work. Silver goes still almost immediately, and Flint listens as he breathes and distantly processes that words are being spoken, not to him, and there’s no danger, right now, and no one’s touching or asking anything of him. The urgency bleeds out with every exhale. Flint hears the shift when silver finally, truly settles down. and then, he goes on reading.


	2. let’s not talk about it, let's just not talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fell extremely hard for youatemytailor/annevbonny‘s au where [flint and miranda regularly swap bodies](https://miss-m-calling.tumblr.com/post/167847119898/annevbonny-annevbonny-concept-a-flint) which stele3 built on to make the swapping a triad thing and [have silver unwittingly join in the fun](http://eidetictelekinetic.tumblr.com/post/168158415270/arzani-fuchsia-annevbonny-annevbonny) and PanBoleyn/eidetictelekinetic put forth that one of the boys swaps with miranda during the confrontation with ashe, which deescalates things just enough to save her life. and. here we are.

Soon after Flint helps Miranda onto the deck of the Walrus, a breath past him telling Billy to release Vane’s crew, she lets out a shocked gasp. The way his companion takes in their suddenly shaking hands and the immediate area tells him it’s not Miranda anymore. She’s been through enough, he thinks. She wanted an escape. She’ll owe Silver an apology for forcing him to take the burden of her headache, oh well. DeGroot approaches and Flint prepares to give the men their orders.

The rushed, panicked breaths behind him don’t abate while he rattles off a few quick directions (load all the cannons, keep shooting until the city is rubble), so he takes them aside. Has their tether ensnared yet another new one? Will he one day soon find himself wearing the skin of fucking Benjamin Hornigold? Jack Rackham? One of the brothel girls?

Miranda’s delicate hand takes desperate hold of the front of his shirt, nearly choking him, and he sees that he was wrong. The eyes that lock onto his are painfully aware of who they are, where they are, and who he is. It is Silver, he only felt like a stranger because Flint has never seen the man absolutely terrified before. “I don’t want this,” he cries ( _cries_ ), turning Miranda’s voice ragged and frantic in a wholly unfamiliar way. “You tell them leave me be. They will listen to you.”

“What is-”

The punishing grip tightens. “Please!”

Flint blinks, and before he can process any of this, Miranda is before him again. She releases his shirt and, swaying on her feet, clutches at his arms for support. Her moan is pained but short, and she pulls herself together by degrees until she stands on her own.

“Where?” Flint asks.

“It’s too late,” she says, pushing Silver’s tears from her cheeks. “They will have already started. I-I told Howell to go ahead.”

He feels his face flush.

“He asked you something. Didn’t he?” She won’t look at him, but she is unbowed. “He wanted you to let him die. Well, I’m sorry, but that is not happening today.”

“Miranda.” The ship rocks from cannon fire. Charles Town, the city built on Thomas’s bones, begins to fall to ruin ahead of them and the only shred of satisfaction he can grasp feels spare and distant. “What the fuck have you done?”


	3. now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?

Miranda always wanted to ask James to paint Thomas. (James often downplayed his artistic skills, but even he couldn’t have thought he would’ve done a worse job than the professional who did the commission of them.) If he was even slightly less protective of his memory of Thomas, if he moved past the point where the mention of him made James look like he’d been run through, she would have asked. In ten years, it never happened.

Thomas doesn’t hesitate before asking James to paint Miranda. He has literally nothing to remember her by. And James does it. He hates the end result and won’t look at it. Thomas says it’s absolutely perfect.


	4. someone had a party while you were sleeping

“Is that my shirt?”

“Oh dear. Is it?” She lifts a shoulder and quirks her mouth at the backside of tiny Allan. “We needed nappies. I am sorry. Sailcloth is too rough for a baby’s skin.” She continues bouncing the fussy little thing in a circle around the cabin. The heir to whatever remains of the fortune of Peter Ashe, Miranda had plucked him from the arms of his hysterical wet-nurse just after James ran his father through. It had been exhilarating, the horrified misery on Peter’s face at the thought that his son would be taken by the friends he had betrayed. Until his last loathsome breath, Miranda was very careful not to voice aloud the plan to locate Abigail wherever he had sent her and hand over the baby as soon as the smoke clears.

James has been… understanding. Baffled, completely at sea, but understanding.

Silver slowly, with great care, slides into a sitting position on the window seat. Despite the sudden grayness of his complexion and the sweat beading on his brow, he chuckles, disbelieving. “I only had the two.”

Approaching him in her orbit around the room, she pauses and purses her lips, appreciating the statement for more than just the current context. The chubby, demanding weight in her arms has softened her, not only because she’s scarcely closed her eyes to sleep in several days. She adjusts her hold on the baby so she can press a light touch to Silver’s arm. His eyes widen, impossibly blue, heartbreakingly young. She does not let go. “We’ll get you another.”


	5. you are a fever i am learning to live with

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week: 1 (labor, tradition, captive)

Captain Flint smiles at him genuinely for the first time while Silver is grumbling over the blisters on his hand left by the potato peeler. “They’ll heal soon enough. A little honest labor never killed anyone.”

Because Silver is physically incapable of leaving well enough alone, he says, “Are you sure about that?”

At that he winks, and Silver nearly faints dead away. The captain carries himself like someone who’s fucked recently, like something very important just went very right. It’s having a terrible effect on Silver’s attention span. Finally he turns to leave, because he’s a busy man and not because he wanted to give Silver a good view of his arse.

Despite their established tradition of extremely credible threats to his person, Silver’s traitorous brain thinks, alarmingly, _I could be your captive anytime._


	6. the space between one note and the next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week: 2 (honesty, travel, past)

Silver hasn’t drawn a normal breath since Hornigold’s ship declined to engage with the broad side of the Walrus and both he and Flint retreated to the captain’s cabin. Between the rapid near-wheezes and the clomp of his iron foot traveling past too quickly and too often, Flint is idly concerned he’ll cause himself to swoon.

At last he slows down and pins Flint with glittering eyes. “ _Honestly_?”

“You seem vexed.” Flint refuses to flinch when Silver advances on him and takes hold of his shirt.

“I should have you murdered.” The letters of each word are pronounced carefully so as not to allow anyone to mistake their meaning. “You _knew_ my idea would work. You let me think I’d be the death of us all.”

Flint smiles, letting him take what he wishes from that and the silence. Does it matter, really?

Silver makes an interesting sound--too soft to be a grunt, too angry to be a whimper--then tugs at Flint’s shirt hard until he falls forward and their mouths meet.


	7. a man says to another man, can i tell you something? the other man says, no.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week (scream, owl, horizon)

The man who will eventually be known as Long John Silver blinks from behind fake spectacles to contribute to his owlish appearance. The mark, a broad-shouldered ginger he’d found at the docks, hands clasped behind his back while he watched the horizon, is silent.

He considers giving his pitch a second time more slowly. Naval officers are mainly toffs, and often quite stupid. That virtually guarantees the end result of a con, but can make the set-up more laborious.

“No,” the mark says.

“I-I’m sorry?” He blinks again, eyes wide with sincerity.

Now a slight smile. “The glass from those spectacles would be of more use as a window.”

The distinct sound of screaming comes from deep within. He chose poorly. He can see that now. “Sir, I assure you-“

“You’ve wasted enough of my time. Fuck off before I have you drafted to service.”


	8. do you feel lucky? do you want to go home now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week (villain, water, book)

“I SEE YOU, VILLAIN.”

Phone plastered to one side of his face, Silver glances around him. People are starting to file into the room and take their seats. He peels away from the dais, from his agent, from the shiny copy of the book he’s about to cajole them into buying. “Um, hey. Are you-”

“Sorry,” he hears, in a much more rational tone of voice, before an inarticulate near-scream. “You- you utter stain. You fucking frog’s taint. You SAW me pulling into the space. Make me get out of this vehicle. DO IT. I will _drown you_ with this bottle of water.”

“Difficulty parking the car?” Silver asks lightly.

He growls. “This country is a mistake. I should never have let you convince me to cross the Atlantic, even temp- FOR FUCK SAKE.”

Silver laughs, quietly, at a successive series of beeps. “See you soon, I suppose. Don’t get yourself arrested please.”


	9. like little boats rowed out too far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week (story, pistol, rabbit)  
> trigger warning for implied child abuse

“That boy’s a pistol,” the parents say of the tiny, curly-headed thing who whips around them. When he bumps into someone on his way to the monkey bars or the jungle gym, he always smirks, like an adult who knows he did wrong just as he knows he’ll get away with it. None of the regulars know who he belongs to and he’s not enrolled in any of the nearby preschools, but he shows up every afternoon in clean clothes and he’s well-fed enough to run around for hours at a time. One week there’s a smudge of purple under his eye. That happens with energetic little boys. They smack into things and keep on going. And anyway, it’s none of their business.

This particular Wednesday, a ginger teen has occupied a table with his knapsack and a sack lunch. He’s kept to himself, his nose in a book, and hasn’t bothered any of the children, so no one has complained. Yet. The boy who belongs to no one approaches, a raggedy stuffed rabbit tucked under his arm.

He points at the teen’s book. “Story.”

The teen blinks, then looks at the cluster of parents, who all swiftly find something else to look at. “All right.” He pats the bench next to him. The boy scampers to the bench on the other side of the table and the teen sighs, but turns so they’re face to face. “Story.”

By the time the boy has started on half the teen’s ham sandwich, a handful of children have joined in to listen to the tale of Socrates, a man who refused to apologize the way society wanted him to.


	10. you might like it here. i think that you might like it here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week (moonlight, map, paint, blade, record, rock)

“When Vane’s quartermaster was satisfied, rather reached the limits of his dissatisfaction,” Silver breathes out, pressing his cheek against Flint’s back, “he held a blade to my throat in a singularly decisive manner.”

 _I’m the only one allowed to do that_ , Flint thinks.

“He made to paint the room with my blood and let my carcass settle amongst the rocks at the bottom of the sea. It- it was not an outcome for which I felt any particular sense of dread, in that moment.”

Moonlight plays against the rings on Flint’s fingers as he fidgets and stares out at the sea, letting Silver sigh to himself, not taking anything more than he is willing to give.

“For the record,” here Silver tries to inject a sardonic note, but fails, miserably, “I never truly believed anyone would come for me.”

The correct response is suddenly mapped out clear as day. “ _I’ll_ always come for you,” Flint says.

The arm around his waist tightens. That’s the only reply he gets.


	11. then the question behind every question: what happens next?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silverflint drabble of the week (snow, gun, remorse, wine, paper, lock)

James blinks at the bottle of wine Silver holds aloft rather than focus on the incongruous grin. The quaking mess who held a gun on him all that time ago has been locked away. In his place seems to be the idiot thief with teeth like a shark.

“I’ve never been to Georgia.” Silver looks away, taking a long pull from the bottle. “Does it snow there?“

Growl rising in his throat, James fights the feeling he’s nothing so much as paper that could be blown away, again, at this changeling’s whim. “About as often as you express genuine remorse.“


	12. because i’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: suicide

“You are having a fucking _laugh_ ,” James says as soon as he realizes who it is on the other side of the phone. Thomas mumbles in his sleep and turns onto his side.

"Can you please come and get me?"

Silver’s voice sounds so small. Hardly recognizable. Despite everything, that’s enough to get him out the door, keys in hand.

James finds him at the middle of a bridge, eyes hollow. He stands, balancing precariously on one leg and nothing else.

He can see it clearly, Silver standing at the edge, taking a steadying breath, watching his crutch slip into the water, and then deciding, no, not today.

The only sound in the car is a semi-continuous sniffle. Around every third kilometer, Silver brushes away a tear with the heel of his hand. Unwittingly James remembers this in intimate detail, the gutting realization that there will be no quick end to the pain, that he must live with it, somehow, and keep moving.

No one would blame James if he said nothing. He surprises himself once they reach their shuffling way through the door, shifting his grip and wrapping his arms around Silver’s neck. It feels like someone threw saltwater on a thousand papercuts, but he holds tight.

“I did love you,” he confesses, so quietly his voice won’t carry past the ear he whispers into. The tips of Silver’s fingers dig into his shoulders. “When you’re ready, find me and earn that back.”


	13. everything is happening at the wrong end of a very long tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: “You’re burning up”, twofrontteethstillcrooked

“You’re burning up,” Flint hears through the increasingly loud ambient noise of blood rushing through his ears, and he blows air through his lips like a trumpet.

“Bullshit phrase,” he says. “Here.” He takes Silver’s hand, and, as the other man makes a soft grunt of protest, places it against his forehead. “See? No danger of melted skin, blisters… Bullshit.”

“You’re rambling, you’re fevered, you’re ill-” Silver reclaims his hand and uses it to push Flint’s coat off his shoulders, letting it land in a heap on the floor. “And you’re _fucking injured_.”

Flint looks down at his stomach. Nothing there. Silver has lost his mind in the week they’ve been separated. It’s very sad and alarming. He should leave and seek help.

“James?” Silver says tightly, with much restraint. “Try again.”

He twists a bit to view the left side of his back, the world going gray in an instant. He says “Oh” at the same time Silver says fuck. The hand that reaches up to keep him from sinking is red and slippery.

“There is some kind of bandage here. You bled through it. Come now, up you get.” Silver speaks through gritted teeth as he takes on more of Flint’s weight. They stumble back out into the rain.

“I just got here,” Flint says, not caring how peevish he might sound.The kiss Silver drops on his lips mollifies him slightly.

“We’re going to Howell’s clinic.” Silver inserts the key into the ignition with shaking, bloody hands. “Why did you not go there directly? You clearly have a raging infection and-”

Flint keeps his eyes on Silver, even as his body slides into a slump against the door. “Guess I missed you.” Silver stifles his tiny smile, but Flint catches it nonetheless.


End file.
